Art and Science: A collaboration

WEARABLE: A collaboration between myself, Edinburgh College of Art and the Edinburgh Neuroscience Department. Will be on display during the Neuroscience Day at the Royal College of Physicians 20th March 2013. 

Over the past two centuries, within the natural sciences, the visual representation of scientific theories has become an essential and integral part of communication and understanding among scientists. Even more important is visual representation for the popularization of science, bringing science to the public, especially in our age of multi-media mass communication.

Adding a further dimension of popularization to the neuro-scientific work, I printed both patterns onto silk twill textiles and made these into various garments. A very specialized kind of knowledge is thus presented to a public that is most likely is completely unfamiliar with this significant biomedical research. My idea is to burst the bubble of secluded research and open it up to the general public and give them the opportunity vicariously to participate by wearing clothes that give expression to the research and theories on which many modern biomedical advances depend.

  

My work, entitled WEARABLE, looks at the subject matter of neuroscience and

its function as a whole. I am interested in looking at a specialized topic from a non-specialized point of view. To me as an artist, it is an exciting challenge to translate white coat lab work by bringing it from behind locked doors to the outside world.

My Interview with Summerhall TV

Bec Wonders : Step Inside from www.summerhall.tv on Vimeo.

"Step Inside" Exhibition at Whitespace

Step Inside is an exhibition that I recently had at Whitespace in Edinburgh. 

The show is called "Step Inside", as the viewer actually gets to Step Inside my painting. It
includes painted walls, floors and every piece of furniture inside the painting.

My goal with this project is to reach out to the general public instead of just the fine art world.

Someone with no background in fine art will still have a direct relationship towards the painting,
because as soon as they step foot in the gallery, they will find themselves inside
the painting. I do not only want to make art for art's sake, but instead take an active stance
in the art world, rather than a passive one. 

With regards to the actual painting, there is no shadowing or negative space, the only reason
why we can identify objects within the painting is because of the different angles of the
pattern. (Everything is hand-painted)

More about the show: www.becwonders.com 

Thanks to talented photographers Jake Howe and Charlie Moon!

Photographer: Jake Howe

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jakehowe/

Photographer: Charlie Moon 

www.twitter.com/charliemoontm

www.charliemoontm.tumblr.com

Update: My three current projects

Finally an update! I'm currently working on three different projects of which none are finished!

The first project is based on my meat triptych. I painted different animal parts in pattern and then later converted them onto textile. My designs are currently in construction (here is a little preview), and soon the collection will be photographed and on my webshop!

My idea: I'm sick of seeing fine art only on a white wall. Often times ones has to be in the right state of mind before even going in to a gallery. By exposing something traditional (painting) in a contemporary way (fashion), I can access a completely different audience with an unfamiliar subject matter. 

My second project: I am currently painting a 2.5x3m canvas. The subject matter is of a generic room engulfed by a pattern designed by myself. I had custom colors made so I can just paint out of the tin. It's a very mechanical and clinical way of working, which I really enjoy. I am the machine in this scenario. When it's finished (which will be in a few weeks), I am going to re-create the room. That is, I will manipulate the furniture in the painting and paint the same geometric pattern onto the chairs and shelves. This way, the viewer will find themselves "inside" of the painting. 

More on this later.

And my third project: I am always doing something with paintography. Currently I printed out two of my photographs from Vancouver (model: Alison Jang). I am manipulating mediums, pastes and paint on-top of the photograph to create different textures and, instead of traditionally painting, I want the different properties of the materials to flow together. This really serves its purpose next to my second project, as it's the opposite of machine-like work, and functions as a break from the huge canvas.